2.
Top 10 vSphere 5.5 Improvements
Attending VMworld this year was very exciting; the release of their NSX product for
true virtualization of the network was amongst its biggest announcements. I am
looking forward to see this product in action, I believe we will see some very solid
security mitigation techniques stem from this deployment, not to mention the ease of
network implementation!
We will discuss this in more detail in a future blog. Today we are going to look at the
top 10 improvements in the upcoming release of vSphere 5.5, here they are:
Ottawa / Toronto / VIRTUALLY anywhere, instructor led / www.CTEsolutions.com / 1 (866) 653-5353

3.
1 vSphere Web Client:
4 vSAN is now available
Why did I choose this for our #1? With
the push to the web Client from
VMware many of us were dealing with
a slow interface that decreased our
ability to get work done! I do not know
about you but I really do not want to
spend even an extra 15 minutes a day
at work just because I am waiting! This
new interface is fast in comparison and
I do not feel like I am waiting, which
was not the case in previous versions.
This new web client has some
additional filtering and navigation
features and had the ability to manage
the new 64TB VMDK (Yes it is really
only 62TB).
Software Defined Storage is one of the
new hot topics and VMware is
attempting to lead the pack, however
there are other hardware vendors that
have a similar implementation that has
worked well. However I like where they
are headed, I will need a lot more
testing before I am ready to use this in
any production environment but there
are some details. This feature is
enabled on the host and will provide
redundant, supported storage across a
maximum of 8 hosts. VMware states
the primary use cases will be VDI,
test/dev, big data, and a disaster
recovery target. vSAN functionality will
be sold as a standalone offering. The
vSAN beta is in public beta and
available at vSANbeta.com.
2 Single Sign On (SSO)
The new release of SSO is easier to
understand and use, I think you will
actually like it now! It still provides a
great
resource
for
multiple
authentication sources! Surprisingly it
provides upgrading from 5.0 to 5.5!
3 vApp HA Additions
vSphere 5.5 can now monitor
applications you have running inside
the VM! No need for a 3rd party tool
now. I like the idea and in testing it
works well, I am not 100% convinced
yet but I will try this with clients on noncritical systems until I am confident in
the results.
5 vCenter Orchestrator
Additions
VMware views Orchestrator as a key
component moving forward in the
migration to the cloud and they have
improved its scalability and availability
to allow for that planned migration. It
also added features which include a
workflow debugger, health check, and
auto-alerts
Ottawa / Toronto / VIRTUALLY anywhere, instructor led / www.CTEsolutions.com / 1 (866) 653-5353

4.
6 Flash Read Cache Solution
As expected server-side, host-based
caching was a hot topic this year and
VMware how their own solution. It
requires local SSD on every host that
has this feature enabled and support
vMotion, HA, DRS and other features
of vSphere. The virtual machines and
applications are not aware of the Flash
Read
Cache
similar
to
other
implementations of features in vSphere
like Transparent Page Sharing. This
solution
will
provide
a
nice
performance boost with read intensive
solutions like VDI.
7 vCenter Multi-Hypervisor
Manager (MHM)
Surprise, Surprise, vSphere now
supports managing a Windows 2012
Hyper-V host! I did not see this one
coming, however it does makes sense.
With the improvement of the latest
version of Hyper-V there are many
companies wondering what they
should- do for the future. With this
latest release VMware is at least
making it possible for the users to
continue working in their well known
and loved vCenter. You can even
perform a cold migration from Hyper-V
to vSphere!
8 vCSA improvements
VMware has stated on many occasions
that they are likely to dump the
windows version of vCenter, personally
I think this will be a huge mistake, but
before that can even happen they must
prove to the world that the vCenter
Server Appliance is going to be a
viable option. One that is easy and
error free! The latest release allows us
to manage 500 hosts and 5000 virtual
machines
with
the
embedded
database! Yes you read that correctly,
the embedded database can handle
500 hosts and 5000 virtual machines!
Ready to give it a whirl? No need for a
costly sql or oracle server, just
download the applicane, run through
the basic setup and you are ready.
Another key item of note with the vCSA
is that there is a new vSphere Update
Manager plugin for the vSphere Web
Client!
Ottawa / Toronto / VIRTUALLY anywhere, instructor led / www.CTEsolutions.com / 1 (866) 653-5353

5.
9 vSphere replication
10 vCloud Director
VMware continues to improve its
replication
solution,
the
current
improvements
to
the
per-VM
replication include compatibility with
Storage vMotion and Storage DRS
along with the ability to have multiple
point in time recovery options. You can
now have up to 10 appliances per
vCenter server which allows for more
freedom in your design and lowers the
overall cost of vCenter purchases. Site
Recovery Manager is updated to
support these features as well.
VMware has already announced that
vCloud Director 5.5 will be the last
release, choosing to migrate to vCloud
Automation Center (vCAC) instead.
But that did not stop them from
improving upon the functionality of this
release. It is now sold as part of the
vCloud Suite. So what have they
done? Added many features related to
the vApp lifecycle management such
as Open Virtualization Format (OVF)
import and export, the option to add or
modify virtual hardware that was
created from a template, and the ability
to clone a VM while preserving its
memory state. There are many more
but that will have to come in a later
blog.
Ottawa / Toronto / VIRTUALLY anywhere, instructor led / www.CTEsolutions.com / 1 (866) 653-5353

6.
Upcoming Training Schedule for vSphere 5.5 Boot-camp
Location
Start Date
Length
Ottawa
Monday, December
09, 2013
5 days
Ottawa
Monday, March 24,
2014
5 days
Toronto
Monday, June 02,
2014
Click to
5 days
Check out other VMware courses here.
http://www.ctesolutions.com/course/vmware-vsphere-training-ottawa/VMware-vSphere-51training-Bootcamp.htm?l=all&checkout
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http://www.ctesolutions.com/pages/guaranteed-to-run-courses.htm
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